Sunday, 19 February 2012

Ice Serpent

Beyond the normal dangers of Faerûn's freezing North, a winding invisible predator is found. What seems at first to be the work of some twisting unnatural wind working itself over the snow and rocks is something else. Soon you find yourself trapped in the cold coils of a cruel unseen something, squeezing your bones and soaking up your life-heat. Something thin, quick and frigid tickles your cheek.

It's difficult to find a creature to go under the elemental tag that'll be interesting. Most of them are X Elemental or Y Elemental, while the more interesting ones get filed under the outsider type. The Ice Serpent is something that managed to slip through the gaps of that classification hoo-ha.

This creature has an interesting way of dealing damage. It's pretty simple in its attacks, being mostly a creature that grabs and squeezes, lacking even a bite or slam attack. It's constrict deals a combination of lethal damage (the constriction itself) and nonlethal damage (cold damage as it drains the heat from you). Potentially, it can just suck the heat out of you until you're unconscious then slither off. And then a blizzard kills you. Them's the breaks.

Also a little bit strange that despite the fact that this creature subsits on the body heat of living things, it still takes double damage from fire sources (it has the cold subtype). I guess something has to balance out the absurd DR it has.

About This Blog

Dungeons & Drawings was started in the summer of 2010 by Blanca Martinez and Joe Sparrow as an illustrative project to re-imagine the many fantastical creatures that feature in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game series.

For us, one of the most fun elements of D&D growing up was simply perusing the various "Monster Manuals", which catalogue hundreds of varied beasts for use in your campaigns. These books are illustrated by a variety of amazingly talented fantasy artists who continue the proud tradition of painters like Frank Frazzetta.

What this blog seeks to do is to take the ideas behind these monsters and redesign them with a more simplified, illustrative goal in mind - trying to be adventurous as possible with colour, style and composition whilst pushing the concept of the creature as far as it will go.

Both Blanca and Joe are professional artists who work as animators in London. They aim to upload an illustration each every Sunday and have run numerous "guest weeks" involving contributions from such famous and talented folk as Matt Layzell and Katie Tiedrich.

Feel free to drop us a line at either of our emails with any questions or comments: